Michael Maapola was born in 1964 in Harare, Zimbabwe. He attended school until matric, where his favourite lessons were in art. Each year at school an art competition was held and he participated and won a number of prizes for his art. He loved sketching and painting in his spare time - something which his mother always encouraged. He went to the army for 18 months after matriculating.

When he was discharged in 1995, he emigrated to Cape Town. Michael was fascinated by the people who lived in the townships and would spend hours sketching the different scenes and then return home and paint them. The next morning, he was off to another township to do the same. When he had a collection of artwork he would take them to the galleries in Cape Town and the owners would sell his artwork.

He is enthusiatic when he works and builds up collages of the shacks in the township and uses acrylic paint with the airbrush method to paint over the shacks and the background in the artwork. His work has been bought by local art lovers and by the tourists and corporations both here and overseas.